OLANA Plein Air Painting

There's nothing like getting out of the studio to paint the beautiful Hudson Valley landscape and there's no better place to do that than at the home of Frederic Edwin Church, OLANA.  Church, along with Thomas Cole, founded the Hudson River School of painting, the first art movement in America.  Hudson River School artists try to capture the overall feeling of the grand vistas, beautiful light effects and natural elements of the landscape in the valley. 

In June a call was put out for artists to submit their work for selection as a participating artist in the First Annual Olana Plein Air Paint-Out and Auction.  I submitted my work and was chosen. Along with thirty other artists, I traveled to Olana and painted on the grounds for two days.  The painting I completed was done in one day or session, as most plein air painting is.  While on the grounds, designed by Church so that he could develop paintings of the views, one can't help but to be overwhelmed by the amount of visual information available.  So how do you decide what to paint.  Well, that's just something you know when you see and I couldn't help but to be taken by the shadows from the large oak tree in front of the residence, so that's what I painted.

On Saturday the paintings were delivered to the education center at Olana, hung and later auctioned to raise money for the Olana Partnership and The CCCA.  My painting won First Place which was icing on the cake for me.  I had a great time and could really feel the presence of Frederic Church, knowing that his home and grounds were being used, once again, as he intended.

Time Flies

I've been so busy over the past few months on a variety of projects and school visits.  I was able to kick-off the Barnes & Noble Book Donation Drive in which we broke last year's record and I was a judge in the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards in NYC.  Here is some of what I've been working on.

Twitter!

You can follow me on Twitter and keep up with what I'm working on and my new books coming out! @SJPetruccio

Norman Rockwell Exhibit

You may have seen a previous post of some of my early illustrations ala Norman Rockwell.  Three of my paintings were selected for an exhibit at the Muckenthaler Cultural Center in California.  You can view the website for more info at http://themuck.org/galleries/upcomin-exhibits/.

While many artists of his day worked in a similar style, Rockwell was able to combine character, expression and Americana in a unique way making him the most popular among readers of such periodicals as The Saturday Evening Post.  Illustrators were allowed creative freedom and often generated their own assignments having months to complete a painting.  My illustrations were done for specific magazine articles and completed inside of a week from sketch to finished art.  It was a great opportunity to work in the same manner as one of my illustration idols.

Book Festival

The Hudson Children's Book Festival, in Hudson, NY,  is fairly new and growing in popularity.  This year I was one of the authors and illustrators signing books and I also presented a workshop.  Many people came to my table to buy a book or just talk.  I even had a visit from old neighbors I hadn't seen in about 35 years who had seen an article about me in the local newspaper!  The photos show them as well as my workshop.

Book Festival Report

The second annual Empire State Book Festival, held on 4/2/11, had much to offer attendees.  Great speakers and programs as well as the chance to meet and greet authors and illustrators.  I saw some old friends there and made some new ones as well.  For a number of reasons the attendance was not up from last year but the energy and interest from participants was.  I hope to be back again next year.

New Book!

After a few weeks of solid painting I'm finally finished with the art for my latest book, " Jonah The Runaway Prophet".  This was a great story to illustrate and the research was interesting as well...no whale involved but the "giant fish" was most probably a whale shark.  This creature is a filter feeder with a chambered stomach so Jonah could have lived inside for a time.  That's probably more information than you wanted but that's what you run into when researching even the simplest of stories.